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Lyrics

LITTLE WHITE LIES

Official studio version

We met on open streets where we both had no place to go
I remember how my heart beat when you said "Oh Billy I love you so"
Now, standing in the doorway, did you ever think that we could look this old
Victims of the little white lies that we told

We did not count tomorrows, we took what we could and ran
There was no time for sorrow, every place you went I held your hand
And when the night closed in I was sure your kisses told me all I had to know
But they never whispered the little white lies that we told

It was so good at the start, nothing could ever pull it apart
Running hand in hand through the rain, but soon the heart break, soon the pain, girl
There were no cold denials, nobody really lied
It wasn't in the things we said, girl, just time spent, promises implied
And when it began to fall apart eaten quietly away from the inside
Bit by bit by those little white lies

Hey!
Hey!
Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey, hey hey hey!

Now standing in the doorway, did you ever think, ever think that we could look this old
Victims of the little white lies that we told
Now lying here in the dark, did you ever think, ever think that we could be this cold
Just as cold as the little white lies that we told

Info

LITTLE WHITE LIES is a song written by Bruce Springsteen and released on The Ties That Bind: The River Collection box set in 2015. The above lyrics are for the official studio version of LITTLE WHITE LIES as released in 2015.

LITTLE WHITE LIES debuted on 25 Nov 2015 on Sirius XM's E Street Radio channel, during "The Ties That Bind Radio Special". The special features snippets from the Thom Zimny's The Ties That Bind documentary, mixed in with about an hour of music previews mostly pulled from various elements of The Ties That Bind: The River Collection box set, including both of Thom Zimny's films.

The first verse from the official studio version of LITTLE WHITE LIES later appeared in LOOSE ENDS.

Studio Recording

According to Sony's database of Springsteen recording sessions, LITTLE WHITE LIES was recorded on 01 and 13 Jun 1979 at The Power Station in New York City, NY. Two studio takes of the song are in circulation, one recorded on 01 Jun 1979 (the unofficial studio version) and one apparently recorded on 13 Jun 1979 (the official studio version).

The two circulating studio versions of LITTLE WHITE LIES share the same music, but lyrically they are two completely different songs. The unofficial studio version uses basically the same lyrics found in MARY LOU and BE TRUE and does not contain "little white lies" anywhere in the lyrics. Since the eighties, bootleggers have called the song "To You", "Don't Do It To Me", and "White Lies (Don't Do It To Me)", but Sony's database of Springsteen recording sessions clearly lists it under the title "Little White Lies".

Additionally, a rough acoustic home demo take of LITTLE WHITE LIES is circulating among fans. It's a brief practice take with mostly unintelligible lyrics recorded at Springsteen's home in Holmdel, NJ, sometime between January and June 1979. Aside from the melody, this acoustic demo have very little to do with what was subsequently recorded with the band in studio. See the home demo version for more details.

The Ties That Bind: The River Collection

The Ties That Bind: The River Collection is a Bruce Springsteen box set released in 2015 on Columbia Records to celebrate the 35th anniversary of The River album. The 10"x12" box set contains four CDs, two Blu-Ray discs or three DVDs, and a hardcover 148-page coffee table book featuring 200 mostly unseen studio and live photographs, pages from Springsteen's notebooks, single covers, images and outtakes from the original album package, and other memorabilia documenting the album, plus a new essay by Mikal Gilmore. The box set was announced on 16 Oct 2015 and released to retail on 04 Dec 2015.

The Ties That Bind: The River Collection (box set cover art)

The first two discs consist of the 2014 remastered version of The River album. The third disc contains The River: Single Album, a 10-track album originally planned for release in 1979, under the title "The Ties That Bind". "The songs lacked the kind of unity and conceptual intensity I liked my music to have. So we went back in the studio," Springsteen wrote in his 1998 book Songs. He scrapped the project and went on to rework some of the songs and write and record some others, leading to the double-disc release the following year. All but one of these ten tracks were previously released.

The fourth discs contains The River: Outtakes, a 22-track album collection consisting of outtakes from the 1979-1980 sessions that didn't make the cut for either the single- or double-album versions of The River. The CD is divided into two parts, "Record One" (the first 11 tracks) and "Record Two" (the remaining 10 tracks). The former consists of unreleased songs while the latter consists of previously released songs.

Previously released on The Essential Bruce Springsteen (2003 3-disc edition)

The fifth disc contains the 60-minute documentary, The Ties That Bind, produced and directed by Grammy and Emmy-winning filmmaker Thom Zimny. The documentary features an intimate interview with Bruce Springsteen as he reflects on writing and recording of The River. The film transitions between Springsteen telling the stories behind the music — and illustrating them with solo acoustic guitar performances — interspersed with period concert footage and rare photos of him and the band in and out of the studio.

The sixth disc (on the Blu-Ray release) or sixth and seventh disc (on the DVD release) feature(s) The River Tour, Tempe 1980, a new professionally shot film consisting of 24 songs from Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band's 05 Nov 1980 concert at Arizona State University in Tempe, AZ. The film uses four cameras and is recorded in multitrack audio and clocks at 2 hours and 40 minutes. The tapes were edited by Thom Zimny and the audio was mixed by Bob Clearmountain and mastered by Bob Ludwig.

The ten songs that are not included on The River Tour, Tempe 1980 (DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN, INDEPENDENCE DAY, FACTORY, RACING IN THE STREET, CANDY'S ROOM, THE TIES THAT BIND, STOLEN CAR, WRECK ON THE HIGHWAY, POINT BLANK, and BACKSTREETS) were later officially released on Live.BruceSpringsteen.net.

The last disc also contains The River Tour Rehearsals, which consists of a 5-song 20-minute bonus footage from Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band's private rehearsals in late September 1980 at Clair Brothers Audio in Lititz, PA. Springsteen and the band can be seen working through live arrangements of what was then unreleased material from the upcoming album.